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Is Avatar weighed down by white man's burden?

Some movie fans are crying the blues about Avatar, claiming James Cameron's billion-dollar blockbuster is racist.

What started out as a few online comments exploded into a cyber phenomenon Monday, hitting Google's top 10 searched items as writers and bloggers weighed in on whether the film about a white solider who helps the 3-metre-tall, blue-skinned Na'vi people fight a human invasion of their planet is racist.

"Avatar," the futuristic James Cameron epic on track to become the biggest-grossing film of all time, has stirred up a maelstrom in cyberspace. Critics say its central plot — of U.S. soldier Jake Sully helping a race of blue-skinned humanoids — is a racist recasting of a white hero saving the natives. (TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX)

Director James Cameron on the set of "Avatar." (MARK FELLMAN / TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX)

"I think it is racist, in the same way I see (racism) in Dances With Wolves," said blogger, author and York University student Orville Lloyd Douglas.

Douglas posted about the issue on his blog, GayBlackCanadianman and said he first became aware of the controversy through British blogger Will Heaven, who decried Avatar's "racist subtext" on the London Telegraph website in late December.

"The movie is another one of those white-saviour movies," Douglas added.

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In Dances With Wolves (1990), Kevin Costner plays a white soldier who assimilates with a Sioux tribe and ultimately saves those who were unable to protect themselves from the invading U.S. Army.

What's raised the hackles of the Avatar critics is the central plot about the American military's plan to invade the planet of Pandora to mine a priceless mineral deposit under the most sacred site to the native Na'vi.

The army sends in a soldier in the blue-skinned avatar identity as of one of the Na'vi in an attempt to win them over. He becomes a sympathizer and bonds with the natives, eventually helping them fight back. The fact a white man is sent in to save the day for natives unable to help themselves isn't lost on Avatar's detractors.

Actress Robinne Lee (Seven Pounds), who is of black and Chinese ancestry, told the Associated Press the movie has echoes of Hollywood's version of the Pocahontas story – "the Indian woman leads the white man into the wilderness, and he learns the way of the people and becomes the saviour.

"It's really upsetting in many ways," added Lee, who does not appear in Avatar. "It would be nice if we could save ourselves."

Simone Browne, an assistant sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Toronto resident, believes Cameron was aware these issues would spark debate.

"It was very deliberate in its design and I don't think we can dismiss it as innocent," said Browne.

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"I think it may be racist in its effects, because it is still containing the same old tropes about the white man's burden."

Michael Zryd, associate professor of film at York University, isn't convinced the movie is racist, but he sympathizes with the argument.

"I understand where the critique is coming from, while I disagree with it," he said.

"He still has the white man coming in to save the day," observed Zryd. "It's kind of a no-win situation for Cameron."

Critics also complained that non-white actors play the five key Na'vi roles. The man who rescues them, played by actor Sam Worthington, is white.

For his part, writer/director Cameron said in an email to AP that his film "asks us to open our eyes and truly see others, respecting them even though they are different, in the hope that we may find a way to prevent conflict and live more harmoniously on this world. I hardly think that is a racist message."

The debate extended far beyond movie websites. A golf blog, Party of Fore, put talk about greens aside to discuss white and blue.

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